


Once every day your life starts again

by blackmustache



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Friendship, Head Injury, M/M, Secret Relationship, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 11:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3608199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmustache/pseuds/blackmustache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere in a non-specific not-too-distant future, Louis gets a mild case of amnesia and forgets he's dating Nick. Nick has to remind him how the hell that happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once every day your life starts again

**Author's Note:**

> Sincerest of thanks to Riley for making me actually finish writing this and Rian for the beta! :D

"Don't go." Nick whines as Louis slides out of bed. "Stay here and have orgasms with me."

Louis shakes his head and laughs softly, stepping into his boxers and pulling them up. "You know I've got to go. Said I would and it's for charity."

"I'm charity," Nick pouts.

"You are not." Louis sticks his tongue out. "You can't compare having to go a few hours without putting your dick in me to thousands of starving African children."

Nick stretches out in bed; the duvet has come well and truly untucked in the night and his toes are poking out at the end. "Stop exaggerating. That's not even what you're raising money for."

"Oh so you're saying that brain injuries are less important than starving children? I'll be sure to tell the Judds that you said that. I'm sure Harry and Izzy would be very interested to hear your thoughts."

"Stop being a twat," Nick laughs, chucking a cushion at Louis while he's buttoning up his jeans. "Fine, go. Is it on the telly like Soccer Aid? Can I perv over your bum in tiny shorts?"

"Nope." Louis grins, unplugging his phone from the charger and looking for his keys. "Soz. You'll have to find something else to wank over while I’m out."

Nick watches Louis moving around Nick's bedroom like he's lived there all his life, not like they've been sleeping together for less than two months and it's weird how much it's not weird. "You're no fun at all."

"You could come." Louis shrugs. "I mean, you literally know everyone who's playing and it's only at Craven Cottage. Nobody would suspect anything if you just showed up."

"Nah." Nick pulls the duvet up to his neck and snuggles up, kicking out at Louis with his cold toes as he passes the bottom of the bed. "Got highly important stuff to do. You coming over tonight?"

Louis shoves his wallet in his pocket and smiles. "Might do. Have to wait and see, won't you?" He smiles. "I'll call you when I'm done. Maybe you can massage my aching thighs."

"Sounds absolutely awful. Couldn't possibly. Not just going to sit around here all day waiting for you, you know."

Louis laughs fondly and ducks back around the bed to press a kiss to Nick's lips. "Bet you do, though." He grins, and then he's gone.

–

Louis is right and it's incredibly annoying. Pig comes padding in as soon as Louis is gone, having had enough of pottering around the flat on her own while the door’s been shut all night. Nick lets her up onto the bed and she wriggles around under the covers until eventually he admits defeat and throws on some clothes so that he can take her for a walk. 

It’s once they get back inside that he realises that he actually _doesn't_ have anything better to do today than wait for Louis to come back. It’s a sad state of affairs. He empties the dishwasher and changes the bed, tucking it in extra tight at the bottom, but then he's done. He tells Pig all about how annoying Louis is as he settles on the couch with a cheese and ham toastie and his laptop, but he doesn’t think she’s listening. She’s already wandered off, no doubt to cause some brand new kind of destruction. Hopefully Louis has left a shoe behind and she’ll chew it until it doesn’t look like a shoe any more, and then Nick can just shrug and tell him, ‘ _well, I told you not to go_ ’. 

He flicks through a few pages of the Sky planner before finally settling on a Four in a Bed marathon on More4 and opens up a Twitter tab on the Eyes Alight page.

He's just being charitable. It’s not that he’s hoping that they've got someone doing a Twitter commentary on the match or anything, he’s just trying to find out how he can donate. He scans the list of players; half of them are names he sort of recognises as former footballers (he thinks) and half are whichever celebs they could get to fit it into their schedules. He smiles when he sees Louis is playing from the start. Liam is playing too, and Niall for the other team with most of McFly. That’s when Nick realises that Louis was definitely right, he could have turned up to see his mates and mucked about with Emma Willis and Rochelle without anyone batting an eyelid. Oh well. Too late now.

The game gets underway and Nick absolutely one hundred percent isn't refreshing Twitter faster than it can update itself. He's watching Four in a Bed and doing some research for the show next week.

Honest.

_10: Still 0-0 as McAvoy sees his shot cleared by Tomlinson._

_25: Nice touch from Tomlinson who gets a shot off but it's held by van der Sar at the second attempt._

_43: Louis Tomlinson is down after a nasty clash with the boot of Jamie Redknapp._

_44: Tomlinson is still receiving treatment. There's some concern as the players gather round him._

_45: Tomlinson wants to continue but the consensus from the bench is that he's got to come off._

_45+1: Team Jones substitution – Louis Tomlinson off, Marvin Humes takes his place._

Nick frowns. He refreshes the page for the rest of the afternoon and he's even more distracted than before. He's given up even pretending he's watching the telly and Pig wanders back in and settles down beside him with her head in the laptop, as if she’s waiting for an update on Louis too.

A few photos start to appear on Tumblr, of Louis lying flat out on the ground and looking uncomfortably close to unconscious. There are gifs of the moment he went down and Nick winces every time but can't take his eyes off the loop. He's seen enough Vines of Louis walking off the pitch to put together the whole thing. He looks disorientated when he stands up but he’s obviously insisting he wants to continue until he finally gives in, shakes hands with Marvin on the touchline then disappears down the tunnel out of sight and away from all the cameras.

There's a video interview with Harry Judd afterwards, mostly talking about how much money they'd raised for the charity but the interviewer does ask him how Louis is doing. Nick's probably imagining it, he knows, but Harry looks a little uncomfortable and his answer sounds very scripted. "Yeah, he’s fine. He might have a little concussion so we took him off as a precaution but he’s fine."

Nick's trying not to worry, but it's weird that Louis hasn't called.

\--

By Sunday evening Nick's properly cheesed off that Louis hasn't been in touch. He said he'd call, and okay fine – he wasn't expecting to get kicked in the head when he'd said that, but how hard is it to send a text? _Sorry, cracking headache, call you when I'm feeling alive?_

Nick would have quite liked the opportunity to come over with chicken soup, or whatever the chicken soup alternative for concussion might be. Tea and paracetamol? But then maybe that's what Louis is trying to avoid. Nick coming over and playing nurse might be one step too far towards putting a name to whatever they've been doing, which they've both been steadfastly avoiding up until now. _Having fun_ and _seeing where things go_ and various other horrible clichés have been used, but definitely not _boyfriend_ or _dating_.

So whatever. Louis doesn't actually owe him anything, and Nick's not going to be the needy one.

By the end of the show on Monday though, Nick's worked himself back around from pissed off to really quite worried, actually. Sure, they’re not officially a couple but they’re definitely friends. Nick knows that part hasn’t been in his imagination and he also knows he would definitely text his friends if he had a concussion. If for no other reason than so that he could complain about it and get some sympathy. 

And isn't it weird that Louis hasn't tweeted since the game? And that nobody else has said anything about his condition either, not even his mum? She'd usually reassure fans straight away, but there's been radio silence on her account since before the match.

God, he's such a stalker, creeping on his not-boyfriend's mum's Twitter account.

He eventually starts and deletes a handful of texts to Harry, trying to find a balance of caring and joking that won't set any alarm bells ringing. He just needs to satisfy his curiosity. He finally settles on _Heard about Louis. That tiny brain rattling in his massive head must have hurt. All OK in 1D-land?_ and presses send. Harry replies quickly, like Harry always does, and Nick frowns at his phone.

_Be nice. Big bump on his head but otherwise OK x_

Well then.

Nick flops onto the sofa and pretends to watch Neighbours, even though he hasn't really watched it since it moved to Channel Five. A few of them have been on his show, though, so he can at least occupy himself by counting the ones he's met. Paul Robinson, check. Karl Kennedy, check. Holly Valance's actual sister? Yep, her too. It's not exactly keeping his attention though. By the time the episode has finished he's pulled up Louis' contact card and he's pressing dial before he can stop himself. They've been shagging for weeks, it's hardly unreasonable for Nick to be interested in whether or not he's still alive, is it?

It rings about a million times and then clicks into voicemail, and Nick hangs up without leaving a message.

\--

Nick wakes up on Tuesday and decides that enough is enough. He's been in about a hundred different moods since Saturday and it's exhausting, so he's going to do something about it. After work he nips to the Tesco Metro, buys a couple of frozen pizzas, some Pringles and a fancy dip selection, and gets a taxi to Louis' house.

He's got a copy of the second Captain America film in the carrier bag and he fishes it out before he rings the bell. It takes a while for Louis to get to the door, long enough that Nick's just contemplating forgetting the whole idea.

Louis frowns a little bit. "Er – hi?"

"You look like shit," Nick tells him cheerfully, because he does. He looks tired and Harry wasn't kidding, there's a corker of a bump on his head. He holds out the DVD. "I've brought this."

Louis' frown deepens, and Nick's smile falters a little. "I've got my own, thanks?"

"Yeah," Nick nods, speaking slowly. "I know. This is yours. You left it at mine last week, remember?" Nick remembers exactly when Louis left it, because they'd tried to do a date-type-thing and watched about twenty minutes before they ended up sacking it off to go to bed.

"Oh, right," Louis nods, except everything doesn't look right at all. "Well, thanks. Um. Bye then?" He reaches out to take the DVD and shuts the door in Nick's face. He actually closes the door right in Nick's face and Nick's really not sure how to process that. He thought the _and I thought we could watch it together now_ was kind of implied, but maybe he should have been a bit clearer.

In any case, he's not going to suffer the embarrassment of knocking again to explain himself, and he particularly doesn't fancy having the door shut in his face a second time. So he takes his Tesco bag for life and heads for home, shoving the pizzas in the freezer and settling down on the sofa with his Pringles and dip while he tries to make sense of what just happened.

He vaguely considers getting astonishingly drunk in the middle-of-the-day way that only celebrities and alcoholics can get away with, except when he’s standing in front of the wine rack he remembers that he and Louis finished the last bottle last week. He’s not really in the mood to go back to the shop and the closest thing to booze in his cupboard right now is cough syrup. And even then it’s only a sticky bottle of Tixylix that one of his hundreds of friends with children had left behind. Upon further inspection, it’s a year and a half out of date.

He’s not sure that’ll hit the spot.

–

He falls asleep in front of the TV in the end, which is an almost grown-up alternative to getting pissed in the afternoon, but it means that when his phone rings it takes him an eternity to wake up, find it, and answer it.

"'lo?" He croaks, and realises he didn't even check to see who was calling.

"Hello – is that Nick?"

It's a woman's voice, and Nick doesn't recognise it. She sounds northern though. "Yeah – speaking." He's just woken up and she reminds him of home, so he answers her without really thinking. "I mean – who's calling please?"

"My name is Jay," she starts, and she sounds like she's smiling. "Louis' mum?"

Well. Of all the people Nick thought might be on the other end of the line, Louis Tomlinson's mother is pretty far down that list. Probably lower than Kate Middleton or Britney Spears even, since the possibility of it being Jay on the other end would never have crossed his mind in a million years.

"Hello – are you still there?"

"Sorry." Nick tiredly pushes his fingers into his eyes and mutes the TV. He's trying to come up with the friendliest possible way to ask what she wants. "So, um. What can I do for you?"

"Well," she starts. "I'm just – forgive me if I'm wrong, but Louis mentioned that you'd been over to his place this afternoon and I thought he might have been a bit off with you."

"He did seem a little – er – a bit arsey." 

Jay laughs a little, although Nick thinks she sounds a bit sad. He feels so awkward waiting for her to get to the point. "He told me last week he's been seeing someone who he really likes and who makes him laugh, and a lot of the things he said – they sound like you."

Nick bites his lip a little because he didn't realise they were at a telling-the-parents stage in their poorly defined relationship, and now he's even more confused about the whole door-in-face incident earlier. "Are you asking me because he won't tell you himself?" Louis always speaks very highly of his mother, and this whole conversation feels backwards.

"No," she sighs, and now she definitely sounds sad. "Well, yes, in a way."

She's being confusing and cryptic Nick _hates_ it when people are confusing, particularly when he's just woken up. "Right."

"You should go and see him."

"I tried that, he shut the door on me. Like I said. He was a bit arsey."

"Try again." There's a shriek in the background and she sighs again, clearly in need of disappearing to tend to one or two of her other children. "Sorry for interfering. Just – go over there. He's in all afternoon, he says."

"Okay." Nick's not sure he really means _okay_ or if he'll actually go at all but he says it anyway.

"Really though?" Christ, what is it with mothers? Bloody sixth sense the lot of them, even when it comes to other people's kids.

"I can probably pop in." He tries to sound cool about it. "Thanks for the call, Mrs Deakin." He’s quite proud of himself for remembering not to call her Tomlinson. 

"I told you. It's Jay. Bye, Nick." She hangs up before he can say anything else, which is probably for the best.

–

He lasts a full hour before he's putting his shoes on and driving round to Louis' place. He knocks on the door a little hesitantly this time, and when Louis answers the door he's forgotten all of the mini speeches he'd been plotting the whole way over.

"Hi."

Louis doesn't even bother with pleasantries. "Retrograde amnesia after concussion, apparently." He steps back from the door to let Nick in. "Sorry about before. The last few months are all sort of fuzzy and there are just all these holes in random places."

"You got kicked in the head." Nick mutters, half to himself.

"Yeah. Funnily enough that's one of the missing parts. I've seen the video though, quite glad to forget that bit. Looks like it killed." He bites his lip and it's weird to Nick that Louis is like this, because in all the sides of Louis that Nick has seen over the years he's never seen him be quite so shy. "Do you want to sit down? I'll make a brew. And mum says she thinks we've been dating, so we should probably talk about that. Milk? Sugar?"

The way he trundles along without pausing for breath is quite astonishing even to Nick, who considers himself a master of not being able to shut up. "I take it I'm one of the holes, then?"

Louis freezes with his hand on the kettle. "Yeah," he replies quietly. "Sorry about that."

"Milk, please." Nick's great at avoiding uncomfortable subjects and this definitely feels like it could qualify. He stares at the back of Louis' head while he reaches up into the cupboard and pulls out two mugs. It's fascinating because Louis is still going for the same two mugs he always does, inching others out of the way to get to the ones he wants. His hand closes on the handle of the _mad about Doncaster_ one first, with the little dude who always reminds Nick of Dennis the Menace. That's hardly a shock – it's faded and a bit chipped and Louis has probably had it since he was a kid.

It's the other one that surprises Nick. It's Nick's favourite, one he'd unearthed from the back of the cupboard when he was being nosy the first time Louis had invited him over. It's a jazzy red X Factor thing with 'I auditioned for the X Factor and all I got was this lousy mug!' written on the side. Louis had cackled like mad when Nick picked that one, ribbing him for the rest of the night about how yes, if Nick auditioned for X Factor that would _definitely_ be all he'd get out of it. _"That and the lifelong humiliation!"_ Louis had joked and Nick had laughed, pinning him up against the cupboard and kissing him until he shut up.

Louis hadn't commented on it again, but he'd always used that mug for Nick after that. So the fact that he doesn't remember anything yet something is still there in the back of his mind telling him to use that one gives Nick some hope.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and Googles _retrograde amnesia after concussion_. Or he tries to, but he only gets halfway through the first word before Louis glances round and catches him. "Want me to spell it for you?"

Nick blushes a little and shoves his phone back into his pocket. "Sorry." Louis nods a little, he just pours the milk and sticks the carton back in the fridge without further comment. So Nick changes the subject. "Your mum's nice."

Louis hands Nick his tea. "She was right then?" He bites his lip and looks up to meet Nick's eyes. "How the fuck did that happen?"

Nick shrugs a little. "I bought you a drink at a party."

Louis laughs. "Oh well, that explains everything."

"Yeah, pretty much." Nick smiles. He wraps both hands around his mug and leans back against the cupboards. "I was getting a round in when you were at the bar so I said I'd pay for yours. Obviously you immediately changed your order to something twice as expensive."

"Of course I did."

What had actually happened was Nick had offered to add Louis' drink to his order and Louis had glared at him and said _do you normally buy drinks for your mortal enemies?_. He remembers he'd grinned at Louis, because really all of this alleged beef between them had been created by the fans and the media and it had zero basis in reality. At least not from Nick's side. _Yes, you see what's happened is I've just given the barman the nod, he's going to slip some arsenic into your beer._

Louis had laughed then, clapped Nick on the back and said _yeah, okay._ And then shouted to the barman that he'd changed his mind and he wanted some kind of expensive craft bollocks instead of what he'd originally asked for.

"Then what?" Louis sips his tea. "We got drunk and shagged and realised we quite liked it?"

Nick snorts. "No, not quite. Not that night anyway." He runs his hand through his hair. "God, this is weird. We don't normally – like." He trails off without finishing.

"Talk?"

"Yes. Well, no. We talk loads, we just don't – I don't know. We haven't defined anything, I suppose. We're not good at the important talks." He smiles a little. "We're excellent at fun and avoidance."

"I see." Louis kind of hums. "You should probably kiss me then."

Nick's halfway through swallowing a mouthful of tea when Louis says it, and it goes so far down the wrong way that it nearly comes out of his nose. "What?" He croaks.

Louis grins. "You should kiss me. That always works in films. Magical memory restoring kisses."

"Well." Nick tilts his head and sets his mug on the bench. He does his best considering face. "Should probably give that a whirl then."

Nick's not sure how to approach this. He suddenly feels all fingers and thumbs, clumsy and confused and he doesn't know where to stand or how to do it. Usually kisses just _happen_ , it turns out he doesn't know how to do it on demand.

Louis puts down his own cup of tea and stares at Nick, a little smirk on his lips and his hands on his hips. "All talk, Grimshaw?"

It's enough of the Louis he knows to kick Nick into action. He steps forward and tugs Louis towards him by his wrists, letting go and tilting Louis' face up towards him. He presses their lips together and Louis kisses back instantly, his arms going up and settling around Nick's neck like they always do. It's almost too much for Nick and he's a little breathless when they pull apart. "Anything?"

Louis presses his lips together and shakes his head. "No." He meets Nick's eyes with a grin. "But we should probably do it again to be sure. Kiss me again."

"Why am I doing all the work? You've got legs and lips. Come and kiss me yourself."

Louis launches himself at Nick and Nick's not expecting it. He loses his balance a little, banging his shoulder into the fridge and sending a shower of magnets to the ground. By the time he's righted himself the kiss is basically over, and he has to chase Louis' lips as he's pulling away to get a couple more pecks in.

Louis looks delighted with himself. "Should we – bedroom?"

Nick snorts. "Someone's keen." He shrugs off his jacket and takes Louis' hand, tugging him towards the living room. "I think we'll stick to sofa for now."

"Oh."

He catches the disappointment in Louis' eyes and he grins. "Don't worry, there's still plenty of things we can get up to on the settee."

"Fine." Louis sighs dramatically and flops down onto the sofa at the opposite end of it to Nick. Nick's about to protest, but then Louis swings his legs into Nick's lap and it doesn't feel so bad any more. "So tell me what happened next then. If we didn't get jiggy at the party."

"Only if you promise never to call it that again, oh my god."

Louis grins. "Deal."

"So about a week later I was doing a set in a club and the waiter brought me a drink I hadn't ordered. I asked where it had come from and he pointed over at the bar. You kind of – you did this little half wave thing, it was weird, so obviously I assumed you were plotting to poison me."

"Hey!" Louis laughs and smacks him in the face with a cushion.

"Well I did, I genuinely thought that." He laughs and throws it onto the floor well out of Louis' reach. "So I made you come over and drink some of it first."

"Oh my god, did you think you were in a spy film or something? You're such a weirdo."

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Yes, grandad." Louis sticks his tongue out.

"Stop that!"

"Well you're sitting there telling me a story like you're about to start reminiscing about the war. 'Eeeh, when I were a lad, we didn't have nightclubs'."

"Can I remind you that you did actually ask me to tell you this? I don't have to. I can just go."

"No." Louis answers quickly, suddenly serious. "I mean – no. Please don't. You're the only person who's not treating me like an invalid. I've forgotten some bits and pieces from the last couple of months, I don't need mum calling every five minutes to check if I've drowned in the bath."

"Well." Nick shrugs, and presses a thumb into the sole of one of Louis' feet. "That's partly because nobody told me, because nobody knows about us. I thought you were just ignoring me or something."

"I was fuming when you came over earlier. I shut the door-"

"In my face."

Louis ignores him. "I shut the door and rung mum to tell her Nick Grimshaw was on my doorstep saying I look like shit. Couldn't believe it when she just asked me for your number. I told her not to be stupid, I haven't even got your number." He laughs a little. "Had to ring her back five minutes later when I found it in my phone and ask her if she knew any reason why I might have it."

"What did she say? 'Because you're probably sleeping with him, love'?"

"No, don't be a tit. She just asked me for the number and hung up. Then she phoned back after she'd spoken to you."

"So this, um," Nick trails off, waving his hand wildly in Louis' general direction.

"Amnesia," Louis prompts dryly. "Have you got it too?"

"No, shut up. Sorry. Amnesia. God, it just sounds a bit ridiculous saying it. People on TV get amnesia."

"I can assure you it's not made up."

Nick scrunches up his nose. "I know, sorry. Sorry." He looks up to see Louis glaring at him, clearly ready to whack him if he apologises again. "This amnesia. Have they said – is it permanent?"

Louis shrugs a bit. "Don't really know. They said it's different in every case, but the longer it lasts the less likely it is I'll remember stuff."

"Right." Nick swallows. He's not sure what he's supposed to do if Louis never remembers _them_ ; they could pick up from here but it would be weird, Nick having the memory and Louis just along for the ride because he was told to. "Funny really, that you were playing in a match for brain injuries and then you got one."

Louis glares at him again. "Hilarious, Nicholas. Absolutely side-splitting."

Nick grins. "Sorry?"

Louis launches himself across the sofa and into Nick's lap, straddling his thighs with a cushion raised high above his head all set to unleash his wrath. "I'm warning you Grimshaw. One more apology and you'll _wish_ the worst thing I did was shut the door in your face." He narrows his eyes. "Understand?"

"Yes." Nick nods confidently and Louis lowers the cushion.

"Good. Now you can finish your story. I bought you a drink, then what?"

"I invited you up to the booth." Nick rests his hands on Louis' thighs and squeezes a little. "I didn't think you'd come, but you did. You started out being annoying, poking me, moving my things when I wasn't looking." Nick tips his head back against the sofa and looks up at Louis. "You were totally wasted and being absolutely shameless."

Nick's eyes are trained on Louis' throat as he swallows. "What was I doing?"

"All sorts. Dancing really close. Grinding against me a bit." He shifts a little under Louis and Louis bites his lip to try to stop a groan escaping, but he's not fast enough. There's a slight pink tinge to his cheeks and Nick smirks. "The booth was kind of enclosed so nobody even knew you were there. Particularly when you dropped to your knees."

Louis sucks in his breath. "I – what? In public?"

"Mhm." Nick nods. "And the way you looked up at me. That was when I realised you weren't actually drunk at all."

"I gave you a blow job in public?" Louis sounds like he's in awe of himself and Nick laughs, puts him out of his misery.

"No, love. I'm having you on."

Louis doesn't even bother with the cushion this time, he just flicks Nick on the cheek. "Twat."

Nick laughs and catches his wrists before he can do it again, because he knows he deserved that but he doesn't want a repeat. "You did come up to the booth. And you _were_ being a prick, but you weren't all that drunk. And I was being a prick back."

"Well that's not a surprise, you're a knobhead."

Nick squeezes around his wrists and ignores the interruption. "It was like – it felt different to when we've been together in the past. It didn't feel nasty, it felt like a game." He grins a little. "A game we both won if you ask me."

"Hm." Louis nods a little, and sits back on his heels. He looks at Nick, considering, and Nick's just about to ask what he's thinking when Louis leans forward and flicks the button on Nick's jeans.

"What-" He doesn't get to finish his sentence because Louis is tugging on his jeans, trying to get them off. He tries again. "What are you doing?"

"I think that's obvious, no?" Louis sits back again and tries yanking at them from the ankles, but that only pulls Nick down the couch with a yelp and he bangs his head on the armrest.

"Trying to knock me unconscious?!" Nick blinks. "Give me your amnesia? Did you think you can pass it on like in tig, because I don't think that's how it works, love."

"I was going to blow you!" Louis sounds so indignant that Nick can't help but start to giggle, even as he's rubbing what he's sure will develop into a gigantic bump on the back of his head. Might even match the one Louis has. "Oi." Louis flicks his cheek again. "I'm serious."

"Love." Nick stops giggling and softens his voice a little. "You don't have to – I mean, you don't remember, so-"

"Oh." Louis tilts his head and his eyes widen. "Oh!" A smile spreads across his face. "Did I tell you – did you think you were my _first_ , Nicholas?" He sounds delighted and teasy and Nick can feel his cheeks starting to heat up. He thinks he might actually be blushing, which is a terrible state of affairs.

"Um." He clears his throat. It's not like they'd ever actually discussed that, and Nick had just sort of _assumed_ , so. "I mean."

"Oh love." Louis grins a little. "I've been doing this since I was fifteen. Granted, it's been mostly girls the last few years, but I still remember how things work down there. Now help me get your bloody jeans off and I'll prove it to you."

"Stop complaining about my jeans, I don't know how you dare with the ones you wear. Bloody painted on monstrosities. Very distracting."

"Bet you've never complained."

"Irrelevant." Nick tries to hold back a grin and instead just lifts his hips up to help Louis out. "Besides, loving the tracksuit chic you've got going on here. You’re one step away from some kind of nineties shellsuit thing. Hot."

"Hey, I am an _invalid_ and I am _recuperating_ so shut up and let me fucking blow you because the patient gets what the patient wants."

Nick laughs quietly. "All right then bossy. Show me what you've got."

Louis grins at him and drops Nick's jeans onto the floor, settling himself on his knees across Nick's thighs. He leans forward to kiss Nick and Nick smiles, relaxing back into the sofa. Maybe the bedroom would have been a good idea after all, but there's plenty of time for that. So it's a bit of a pisser when Louis' phone starts ringing and Louis sits back with a sigh.

"That's mum's ringtone, sorry. I can't ignore it, she'll think I've died and ring 999, probably."

Nick nods with a small smile. "It's fine." He knows what his own mum would be like if he was two hundred miles away with a concussion.

"Hi, Mum." Louis smiles into the phone. "I'm fine you know. And Nick's here, so you don't have to worry about me being alone." Nick tries not to listen too closely but he knows Louis would leave the room if he was bothered about the conversation being private. He runs his fingers over the tattoos on Louis' left wrist while he talks. "Yes, mum. We're talking. I'll call you later, I promise." He laughs a little at whatever she says next and Nick smiles. "Love you too, mum. Bye."

He throws his phone down onto the other sofa and twists back to face Nick, more in Nick's lap than a position to do anything sexy any more. Nick settles his arms around Louis' waist and Louis smiles, reaching up to runs his hands through Nick's hair. He tugs on it a little like he's trying to find something to do with his hands. "How come nobody knows?"

Nick looks up and lets Louis continue pulling his hair in all directions. "What do you mean?"

Louis shifts a little and looks uncomfortable again all of a sudden. "I mean, nobody knows about us. The lads don't know. If they knew, they'd have told me." He shrugs a little and finally meets Nick's eyes. "I tell them things, usually. They know I go for blokes sometimes, it'd be fine. So why haven't I told them about this?"

Nick's stumped. It's yet another thing they've never discussed – Nick didn't know they knew anything at all. "I – we're just having fun."

"For how long now?"

Nick counts back in his head, takes his time as if he doesn't already know down to the day. "Two months. Ish. Bit less maybe."

"Right." Louis straightens up, moves out of Nick's lap and onto the space beside him on the couch. There's a big gap there now and Nick wants to reach out and pull him back, but Louis looks all closed off and Nick's just not sure any more. "Right, because if – you don't have to be here, that's all."

"What?"

"I mean you don't have to feel obliged to come over here and play nursemaid or whatever this is, not if I'm just good for a quick shag. It's cool. You can go." He looks at Nick with a small, sad smile. At least, Nick thinks it's sad. Maybe he’s wrong about that too. "I'll give you a ring if I get my memory back and we can pick up where we left off."

"That's not-"

"Because my mum knows now, that's all. I can tell her it was a mistake, that it wasn't you I was seeing and you were just too polite to say so, but if you stay now and this is just a bit of fun. I'm not going to lie to her about it."

"I'm not – it's not." Nick's trying desperately to interrupt Louis and also not say the wrong thing. "I never brought it up because I thought that's probably all it was for you. I mean, you'll be going back on tour soon and you'll probably want to enjoy that to the full which is totally fine." He reaches for Louis' wrist again and circles around it, staring at the heart on his tattoo. "Sort of wanted to keep you around as long as I could, that's all."

"You don't have to-"

"Shut up will you, I'm trying to say a thing." Nick smirks a little when Louis blinks and stops talking. "Right, good. You went straight to the football from my place on Saturday and you said you'd call me later, you'd probably come over. And then I didn't hear from you again. If we'd just – if we'd talked about anything important then someone might have known to tell me and we could have avoided all of this. Which is a really fucking shitty way to learn this lesson, but I've learnt it now. I quite like you. Kind of a lot, actually, but it's not fair to do this when you can't even remember."

"I might never." Louis is quiet, but his cheeks have gone a little bit pink and Nick can see the edges of a smile, he thinks.

"Well then we'll start again. The kissing before didn't go too badly. I think you probably didn't hate that, which is a good sign."

"I always thought you were hot." Louis pulls his knees up to his chest and peers at Nick over the top with a smile. "I didn't just decide overnight you'd be a good shag. I still don't remember, but I don't need to remember to know that."

Nick smiles and reaches for his tea from the coffee table. He takes a big gulp and it's cold and disgusting and he has no idea why he thought it would still be drinkable. He swallows it anyway to save face, but Louis is cackling. "Oi."

"Idiot." Louis looks fond and Nick beams at him as he gets up and gathers the mugs. "I'll make us another one."

"Good idea."

He heads off into the kitchen and calls back over his shoulder. "And then you can take me to bed. Not going to wait around much longer, got people to see if you're not going to pleasure me."

Nick laughs and pulls out his phone, intending to start messing about on Twitter. "Bet you do, though," he shouts, and he's only just opened the Twitter app when he hears the smash.

He's on his feet before he can think and he regrets it when he gets there because there's tea and shards of pottery all over the floor and his socks are soggy and it's gross. But Louis is standing there, in the middle of a pool of cold tea, looking at Nick like he's got the answer to everything.

"I remember."

Nick shivers as the words sink in. "What?"

"I remember saying that to you when I left on Saturday. You said you had better things to do than wait for me to come back, and I said that. I said 'bet you do, though'." He looks at Nick. "Tell me I'm right. Tell me that's what happened and it's a real memory."

"Yeah," Nick breathes. "Yeah, you said that."

Louis flings himself into Nick's arms, and Nick thinks it's all a bit too rom-com to be real, it's making him a little dizzy. He tightens his arms around Louis anyway and kisses him over and over again. Louis grins at him with what Nick thinks might be the most awful, cheesiest, _most beautiful _smile he's ever seen. "And I was right, coz you did."__


End file.
